Lenten Journey to Holiness

0:05Alright. So we're gonna go ahead and get started with today's webinar. I see Minnesota as well. Happy feast day. Most definitely. I'm here, the from marketing, and I'm here have a pleasure to be presenting with miss Maria Brackett today from the SDC program. And Maria is the executive director of the program. And just to give you some background about her, I'm gonna share her bio with you. Maria Brackett is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. I didn't see any people from Massachusetts, but if you're from there, let us know. She received a bachelor's from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and a master's from the University of Dallas, both in English. After this, she went into the world of education, directing schools in The United States and Spain while also completing degrees in pastoral studies at the Pontifical University, Regina Apostolorum, and education at the Universidad Anahuac.

1:11Accompanying people as they grow in her passion, she became involved in the ministry of spiritual direction about twenty years ago, and three three years ago decided to dedicate herself to it. She has also trained and given the Ignatian spiritual exercises, a ministry that is very close to her heart. She considers it a privilege to walk along others in her relationship with the Lord. And from that experience, she's gonna share how you can actually strengthen your walk during this Lenten season. So now without further ado, I'm gonna kick it over to Maria. Thank you, Maria, for being with us today. Thank you so much, Ebony, for this opportunity to be here. I'm very happy. Welcome all of you to Divine Mercy University and to the spiritual direction program, certificate program here at Divine Mercy University.

2:07Let's just start our webinar today with a little prayer. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Holy spirit, come upon us in this time that we have together. Please help us to open our hearts to you. Allow you to move in us. May this be a time of the building up of the presence of the lord in each of our lives, in my life, and and all the lives of the people that are attending the webinar today. Holy Spirit, extend your wings and send your presence upon the whole world and bless it. We ask this in Jesus's name. Amen. And father, son, the holy spirit. Amen. Well, again, thank you so much for being here in this webinar and for the opportunity just to share with you a little bit about walking through lent and their you know, just how a spiritual direction relationship could help us in this time of lent.

3:25I really did kind of wanna extend, you know, this concept of the lent and journey as, you know, to the different lengths that happen in our lives. We're now going through this liturgical time of lent in the Catholic tradition. And it also can be symbolic of the different times in our lives where we go through, a more difficult time or a time of, you know, lent is considered sometimes as a time of purification, a time of atonement, a time of of reassessing where we are and trying to turn our life back to the Lord. And so that there can be different times in our life like that. And, you know, it just made me think of, you know, what pope Francis said about Lent this Ash Wednesday. Lent is a journey that involves our whole life, our entire being.

4:34It is a time to reconsider the path we are taking to find the route that leads us home and to rediscover our personal relationship with God. He said this in his Ash Wednesday homily this year. And that's, you know so we have this liturgical type of Lent, but we also have Lenten times in our life where God calls us to rediscover our path to him, to rediscover that path to our home. You know? That could be our identity to our the turtle dwelling with the Lord and to rediscover our profound relationship with God. No? And involves not just a liturgical time, but our whole life. Right? So this time, you know, we're talking about a Lenten journey of holiness, following Jesus in our life journey. You're kind of using this time of lent to remind us also of the different moments, different Lenten moments that we have in our life where God might be calling us to return to him in a deeper way.

5:44Calling us to kind of reassess how we're walking and where we're walking so as to, you know, fix fix our path, you know, correct our path in one way or another so that we really can find our way home to him. Well, I wanted to just do a little shout out to Saint Joseph today because in the Catholic tradition, we're celebrating his solemnity as a spouse of the Virgin Mary. And this is also falls within the Catholic, you know, what the pope Francis declared of the year of Saint Joseph. And so it's a special day. And just to remember how well Saint Joseph took care of, Jesus and the blessed Virgin Mary and, the time that he was placed to be their guardian and spouse. And so we can just, you know, ask for his care and his attention to us today as we do this webinar.

6:49He's such a consoling presence. So the light the life Lenten journey to holiness and spiritual direction. As I said, you know, we can think of lent as that liturgical time now. And we could also think of the life Lenten journey, the different moments in our lives, where it becomes more clear to us that to a certain extent, life is a Lenten journey. It is that continually, you know, walking towards the Lord and trying to find out how to do that better, and how to, you know, walk closer to him. Sometimes I don't like to use the word better because we find difficulties with that, but how to walk closer to him, how to, how to hear his voice better, how to hear his voice more intimately in us, and just the the place that spiritual direction has in this.

7:54The space of spiritual direction is a space of accompaniment where, you know, I love using the image for spiritual direction of the road to Emmaus, you know, where Christ comes and walks along with those disciples for a certain time and listens to them and understands where they're at, not just physically on a certain road, but actually where their spirits were at, what was happening inside of them. And then he begins to explain some things to them. So and they begin to understand more just what is happening. And, so it's kind of like that in spiritual direction where you the director walks along beside the directee and helps them in one way or another. And that, you know, it's it's a helping relationship, the relationship of the director to the directee.

8:52And one thing that I immediately think of when I think of the space of accompaniment is being where the direct d is. Often this is called empathy. Right? It's not just sympathy of I understand what you're going through, but, I'm looking at your situation from a distance. It's actually being where the directee is, that empathetic presence, whether they're in joy or in pain, really walking alongside of them and trying to understand where they are at interiorly. In that space of accompaniment, sometimes it's a space of encouraging, of supporting, of helping. But as we know, spiritual direction is not directed towards problem solving, nor even advice giving, nor even teaching. Although there are moments of all these in spiritual direction at one time or another, But it's mostly just being there with the person.

9:56The listening, you know, deep listening, understanding. Interiorly, the director making a space for the directee to understand what they're going through, what it feels like, the experiences that they're having, to walk with them into their interior, to look around with them, to have them explain to you. So that as you walk with them, they can walk deeper and deeper into themselves and find the living Lord that dwells there. So it's a journey with the person as the Lord leads him, her, her, and the director tries to understand that journey as best as he or she can and tries to help the person along the way. And as I said, most often, that help is just by being there, really being present with the other person.

11:06So there's a book called spiritual direction, a guide for sharing the father's love that was written by two Benedictine priests a few years ago. And here's some different quotes that I found that I that can just kind of enlighten a little bit more, this relationship and and this relationship of help and support and accompaniment. Our one on one relationship with God grows when it is shared. And this helps us to just see that why that spiritual direction relationship, does does help us in difficult times because as we share with another, where we're finding God in our life, what we feel like he's doing, but we what we're understanding, what we're feeling, that relationship with God will automatically grow because we're having a faith sharing, and that faith sharing helps our faith to grow.

12:03And this might be true for every relationship, you know, when we have a faith sharing in any relationship, but the spiritual direction relationship is special. This is what, Ackland and Hicks say about this. Every relationship affects our relationship with God, but the special relationship of spiritual direction can play an irreposable role in developing the directees one on one relationship with God because it deals most directly with that relationship. Because it's at the service of that relationship. The whole relationship of the director and the director is at the service of the relationship with God. And the and the place of the director is just to help that person access that relationship, put themselves in touch with that relationship, walk into the interiority of, themselves and the experiences that they're having, what they're feeling and living, in their interior and find the Lord there.

13:09Then lastly, spiritual direction is an opportunity to open one's heart totally to another person, sharing the most intimate memories and experiences all the way to the foundation of one's being the relationship with God. One of the, the examples that I'd like to use is, you know, we're all familiar or we probably are familiar with Saint Teresa of Avila's interior castle and how she speaks, that prayer life as a journey into the interior of the castle. Right? And as you move from room to room, you get closer to the Lord and king that dwells in that castle. And this is exactly what, a person's relationship with the Lord is, is that they're moving closer and closer to him and their interior. So the spiritual director just helps them to do that, to move from room to room and to kind of see or discern where the Lord is calling.

14:10You know, kind of the root that the Lord is asking them to take, which room to go into next, how to move from room to room. But ultimately it's to get into that relationship with our Lord, our closer relationship and that, you know, when we talk about holiness, that's what it means. It's sharing, it's growing in the sharing of, God's life. You know, holiness is nothing more than that. It's not perfection. It's it's just growing in God's in sharing God's life. So the the measure that we, grow in our relationship with the Lord, we share our life more with him and he shares his life more with us. And we open ourselves more and more to that divine life, to that God that dwells inside of us. So I wanted to talk a little bit this about the sacred space of spiritual direction, because I think that there's two different elements at play.

15:13Right? It's a human relationship within this divine within a divine relationship. Right? Which which happens in other relationships too. But since this the it's a relationship that really is at the service of helping the directee to grow in their relationship with God. The whole context is a very sacred space. But even though it's sacred, it doesn't mean it's not a human relationship. And I think both of these elements working together allows, the person to really grow and heal and flourish in, you know, in a very integral and whole way. The spiritual director is not just there as like a, you know, two ears to hear or two eyes to see. The spiritual director comes to the relationship as a human being.

16:17And the the director director relationship or the spirits director to the relationship is a real human relationship with a certain purpose. No, and that's to bring, to help the direct tee, to walk closer to Lord, to deepen in the relationship and the spiritual direction relationship. And every spiritual direction session is always developed in the presence of the holy spirit. And the spiritual director depends upon the presence of the holy spirit and believes that the holy spirit is there and believes that this is a walking with someone, in faith. And it's that, and it's also a human relationship of connectedness, of human contact. And often, this human relationship can be an opportunity for the directee to find a secure relationship that allows them that kind of bridges, you know, serves as a bridge to bring that person to form a secure relationship with the Lord.

17:32It's an intimate relationship, but just by the nature of what spiritual direct direction is, the sharing, the vulnerability, the confidentiality, this all speaks about the intimate nature of this relationship. And for some people that's very healing to be able to have an intimate relationship, but to be able to be known kind of from our inside out instead of just from our outside or even from our outside in to be known. It's also a relationship, a human relationship built on trusting. And this this helps people, to be able to have a trusted relationship. We can know in our lives that sometimes, you know, trusting relationships are not as often or frequent as we would like them to be. And we know that we trust the Lord, or we want to trust him.

18:23Sometimes we need a trusting human relationship that kind of just gives us, you know, a leg up and learning how to trust the Lord. Or sometimes it's because our trust in the Lord helps us in that human relationship. But it's, you know, this is how the Lord wants us to be. That it's not only a relationship that we have with him, that we have relationships with other people that help us to grow in our relationship with him, and that he comes to us often through others. And it can often be a healing relationship because the director is a human person and does care as a spiritual director within that space and, the definition and what that means to be a spiritual director, which is not, you know, the same type of relationship like, of a friendship or even an intimate spousal relationship.

19:19It's nothing like that, but it's, but it offers a very deep and close relationship where the person that's driven directed, the directee can often lean on the spiritual director and find support, and can hear the truths about themselves. Sometimes when they forget those truths. So it also is a time of remembering, you know, and encouraging. And this all leads the capacity for that directory to heal, to grow, and to flourish as a human person, in this kind of sacramental, space, the sacred spade of spiritual direction where a a relationship with a human person, it helps us, and works to be a bridge, to help us or support and encouragement to help us to grow in our relationship with the board.

20:21So there are some different images, you know, from sacred scripture that I just thought of that kind of depict for us. I know that, you know, there are people that sometimes understand things through words since other people that understand things through pictures, right, or images. So when we began the webinar, I had the image of this good Samaritan, You know, and often we can speak think of the spiritual director, the spiritual direction relationship as the Good Samaritan. The the director might come upon someone in their lives who's hurting, who kneels, who needs some help, and they stop along the way and they offer what they can offer. They help them. They bring them to a place, you know, like the good Samaritan brings them that that wounded band to an inn.

21:11He off he gives them money so that the innkeeper takes care of them. And he says, you know, do take care of them and look after them. And and on my way back, I'll stop and see if there's anything else that I can do. So within that identity that the good Samaritan had and what he was doing and what he could do, he did stop along the way and help. And this could also, you know, is the image of a spiritual director doing what they can to help that person to get to the health that they need. So the spiritual director is always trying to help the directee to to grow in that relationship with the Lord. And if there's anything that they need healing, that's that serving as an obstacle to that relationship to help them to do that healing and whatever way that the director can do that.

22:00Another image is like this of Christ on the way to his the cross. So this is a real Lenten image and the, and the next one after this that I use, of Simon and Cyrene is also a very Lenten image, right? And, and this kind of describes the Lenten moment in our lives that sometimes we experience when we're having a hard time at difficulty when it's painful. Like we see a Christ trying to take up his cross. When we as direct deeds are going through a time in our lives where Christ is asking us to carry the cross with him, But even to see in the life of Christ, as he's carrying this cross, that the father gave him these people along the way that gave him some, some comfort, some support, certain encouragement that connected with them, that connected with him.

22:54Human contact, caring. And this this often is what happens, in a spiritual direction relationship. The caring that we see that that can occur where, a directee can feel cared for. And it as you like you see with Veronica or you even see with Simon of Cyrene, they don't take the place of Jesus. As the director can't take the place of the directee, he can't, you know, he can't follow, he can't take, the person's cross off of them or he can't take on the situation of the directee and he can't he or she can't, take the place of the directory, but they can help the directory as they are going along this journey. And that's what we see with Veronica. That's what we see with Simon of Cyrene. And that's also what we see with the good Samaritan.

24:08That help, that support, that even carrying a little bit of that pain, you know, whether it might not be actually to carry it, but to carry it, within the heart of the director and to have those concerns and and to know, to know, to let the direct d be seen in what in the situation of the of life where they're at having to carry across or having to carry to persevere through suffering or pain. So this this human being, that director that places themselves there, it becomes a comfort. It becomes a way to help the person, the directee, to go through that life situation, which often is so Lenten. Right? Filled with purification or a a challenge that could be painful, but to be there for that person to help them.

25:17So this is kind of the, you know, the importance of spiritual direction in this Lenten journey, whether it's now in Lent itself or in the Lenten moments in our lives. It allows us, you know, a direct d to face the turns of life, the moments of pain or trial, whether those are, you know, moral pains, interior or exterior in a safe environment. And to see the holy ground where the Lord is present, to see where the Lord is acting, what he's doing, to be able to, you know, with the help of a director, to be able to discover the presence of the Lord in these Lenten moments of purification or pain or trial or just following Jesus to the cross, which often is so much of a heart, of our Christian life.

26:14And that spiritual director can help us, the direct deed, to trust in the Lord's plan. Now they can encourage. They can remind us of the way the Lord has acted in our lives before. And this can help us the direct tea, to trust in the Lord's plan and to know that he is that the Lord is here with us. And there there's a reason. There's something that he's doing that he's at work in our lives, that he's not abandoned us. And it also, you know, the spiritual direction relationship can also help us as directees to find the strength that we need to unite ourselves to the suffering Christ and to find the capacity to continue on. You know, if we think about Simon of Cyrene or Veronica and these moments that they met Christ on the way of the cross, I'm sure that that was an encouragement for Christ.

27:19I'm sure, you know, from the just taking the weight, some of the weight of the cross that Simon took off Christ's back was a help for him. But also that sharing, you know, having another human being share that weight, share that situation that I'm sure comforted Christ and encouraged him. Even, you know, it might have even been a way for the father to let Christ know that he wasn't alone. And Veronica too, how she went out to the Lord. And, you know, who knows if that's what our Lord needed, but he needed that knowing that someone was looking at him and caring about him. And Rana connected to him in a deep way as we can see in that picture from the passion of the Christ. And that and that strengthened the board, I'm sure, and helped him to continue on the path that the father wanted for him.

28:28And this also too is how the spiritual direction relationship works. So this is just a little bit about how, you know, whether in this actual time of lent, how spiritual direction can help us persevere and continue wherever the Lord has us in this Lenten time or whether in the in the different Lenten seasons of our life, you know, where the Lord might be asking us, or might just invite, you know, inviting us to greater purification, to greater contact with who we are and who he is, how the spiritual direction relationship, our relationship that is sacred and also truly human. You know, how that, that listening, that empathy, that being present of another human being to us, someone that we allow into our interior, with whom we are able to be vulnerable with who we're able to feel known, how that those, all those human parts and characteristics of of a of a deep human relationship, how that also can help us to persevere, to encourage us, know that that connection to another human being in a deep way, how it can lead us and encourage us in our the growth of our deeper relationship with the Lord.

30:04I wanted to just before we end today, spend a little bit of time explaining to you what the spiritual direction certificate program here at DUVU is and in case you'd like information about it. Often, we might feel called to be a spiritual director. We might just feel like, you know, how do I know if I'm called to be a spiritual director? And, you know, these are some of the ways, that we can see in our lives, but the Lord always works in our lives. You know, just by by our own experience, you know, and you know, what, what have I, what are the desires that I have in my heart? Do I feel called or I feel moved to accompany others on this pilgrimage, that is often lengthened to a living God. You know, am I inspired by sharing by faith relationships and sharing with others?

31:09Do I find, you know, energy to get strengthened when I get to listen to other people and just, when they allow me to to get them to know them in an intimate way and to to encourage them and help them. And would I like to, you know, know know more about the Catholic Christian spiritual tradition and what it would mean and and maybe how to, to serve others as a spiritual director, even to start beginning that path because that's part of the the program, the spiritual direction program, certificate program here at Divine Mercy University is that you go through a path of, you know, of saying, you know, lord, is this really what you want me to do? You know? And you start trying to understand why it could be that he could be, calling you to this.

32:04You know, you start seeing the signs in your own life. What people have said about yours, the help that you've given and and just, how this ministry makes you, grow yourself, how it makes you flourish. So the spiritual direction certificate program is made up of six courses. This is a non degree program, so you don't necessarily need a college degree to get into the program. And it doesn't give you any type of academic degree. It gives you a certificate of completion. These are the six courses that of which the program consists. And as you can see, there are a great combination of that understanding the whole theological process or journey that a person makes throughout their life and the key elements to that and also understanding the human person.

33:07And then those human relating skills that makes the spiritual direction relationship deep, and it allows the direct tea to, to move into their interior and to find the Lord there and to move past obstacles or pains or difficulties, or even joys. Sometimes it can be even difficult for us as human beings to just rest in joy. So the so these are the different aspects of the spiritual direction program, weaves throughout its curriculum. It's an online program. We say fully online because all the classes are given online. It was created to be online, so it allows, a format that's very easy to learn on. And, since it was created to be online, the activities are really distributed in such a way that they help you to learn.

34:04It was created by not only by teachers that are used to teaching within an actual traditional classroom, but also by educators that are used to teaching online. So it it come it combines both of these expertise. And then it has two in person four day residencies where we ask you to come here to Divine Mercy University in Sterling, Virginia, for for a four day residency. So this is twice in the program. It's at the end of the SDC 300 and at the beginning of the SDC 500. And this allows us the opportunity to really work on those human relating skills in person, allows you us also to get to know you better and need to get to know us better. Our next semester starts, May 19. We always our week always goes from Wednesday to Wednesday, and the application deadline is April 30.

35:04So if you'd like more information, please visit us on our website, sdc-divinemercy.org. You can also contact us by calling (703) 416-1441. We have, we're not able to offer scholarships yet in the program, but we do have what are called MOU partnerships, with different organizations, whether they be diocese or religious congregations. So if if your diocese or even your parish or your religious congregation has an MOU with Divine Mercy University, we're able to offer a 10% discount for our courses, in the program. So thank you so much for your time. I wanted to leave a little bit of time here at the end of the at the end of the webinar to see if there's any questions. Alright. Thank you so much, Maria.

36:16We do have one question currently, and I think that, after they hear the answer to this question, should definitely be excited. The question is, I'm from Canada and travel isn't allowed. Any way I can do the residency part in Canada or any other option? Thank you so much, Ebony. Well, we have been doing during this whole COVID time, we have been doing the residencies online. It's not our preferred way of doing it, but, of course, we've wanted to continue offering them. And they have been, you know, we've been surprised. It has been a good learning experience for the students. We've been happy with that. We're going to try to come back to in person residencies as soon as possible. We know that for some of of no.

37:12The overseas are, you know, Canadians, it's much more difficult to travel. So, we're kind of doing it on a semester basis. Just kind of seeing what the what's going on in the world at that time. And so we're hoping for the May semester, the summer semester to offer the residencies here if everything works out well. And then we'll go semester by semester after that. I don't def I don't think it would be a prohibitive reason for you, you know, as the things are evolving. There could there, you know, it could work out that as things evolve that you could be get down here from Canada. And if we really saw that this was not happening, you know, we would put them back on the line again. Okay. Great.

38:07And, I do wanna point out sometimes, people may not understand that it is online and it requires, your own study times and dedication. We do have another question coming in, but while that question, comes in, could you explain those elements? Yes. It it is, like we said, fully online. So that does mean that, we use what's called an asynchronous model. So it doesn't mean that you have to, like, get online at a certain time and have a class with a professor and your other other students in the course. Asynchronous means that as a cohort, as a group, you go through the class, you know, with the within the same calendar, but you don't have to have times that you actually get online in real time.

39:05Sometimes there's some triad groups that, you know, three or four students you're giving assignments and you have to get online with three or four other students. But other than that, you know, you're we can unroll as you needed to enroll. And if you need to send an assignment, you know, one day very early in the morning or one day very late at night. As long as you're keeping up with the deadlines on the assignment, you're fine. You can submit them and, like, if you needed if you're gonna have a very full weekend and you're going away, you can always do assignments ahead of time. Or, and if you if you talk to the instructor, you could even, get the opportunity to say, you know, I can't do these things before this time, but can I do them, you know, a few days later?

39:53There's that type of flexibility. So it does allow you kind of to do assignments when you need to do it. Even though the whole cohort, that whole group does work through the eight week period together, but there is a lot of flexibility within the week of each thing. Thank you, Maria. And, I think it's really exciting because that May 19 start date, is, I believe, ten or eleven days after graduation, which is an opportunity where SD students actually do walk across the stage, when they get to that ending point, and they're able to actually meet each other and, share that excitement, although it's a online program. So, just wanted to put that out there. We do affiliate this program strongly with the university and our, total mission here at Divine Mercy University.

40:53So just keep that in mind. Our next question is, does the certificate program have endorsements from any Catholic authority individual? Is there an individual candidate profile for those applying for the SDC program such as certain experiences, traits, or background? Mhmm. The endorsements that we have are just, the same endorsements that Divine Mercy University has. You know, a very well known university, really spoken of so highly in a lot of Catholic and Christian circles. And we do have on our advisory board, the auxiliary bishop of of Atlanta, father David Sanji, who who is the president of St. Luke's Institute. There are different people that have involved themselves with the program as a way also to show their endorsement.

41:56So the endorsements are of that nature. Really, anyone that endorses the university also, endorses this program. And then the second part of that question was the profile. Well, if you look on our website, you'll see some of the requirements to come into the program and some things that are required as you go through the program. You do need to have been in spiritual direction and, we do ask when you are in the program that you are in spiritual direction. We just think that it's very important for anyone that wants to practice this ministry that they are being guided. You know? There's a there's a famous Latin or well known Latin phrase that I'm not remembering right now at this time that that basically says that in order to guide, we must be guided.

42:46So, you know, that's part of the listening. Listening to the Lord, and listening to others to find the Lord there is that capacity to be guided in your own life. So we want to know that you that you, you know, you've you have a commitment to your own, growth with the Lord and that you have been in spiritual direction, and you will be in spiritual direction during the time of the program. Yeah. And I do wanna mention that, even as a part of the application, your your letter of recommendation, it does confirm that experience. So, you can have someone to speak to your experience as far as that goes. Yes. Exactly. And that's what you'll see on the website. We do, we do ask for certain letters of recommendation.

43:37You know, one from your spiritual directors, of course, respecting that confidentiality of that relationship. And also for one from your, you know, your parish priest or your minister, you know, the head of your the ecclesial community to which you belong, if you're a religious sister or brother or a priest, you know, from your superior, just to show us that that you are inserted within a ecclesial community. Because really this the ministry of spiritual direction is at the service of a community. Absolutely. And, please do, write down this contact information. We do put it here for a reason. It will be addressed by our admissions representative, who can answer all of your questions. So if you can jot that down, sdc@divinemercy.edu and the telephone number, in addition to the actual website, sdc-divinemercy.org.

44:39So now we're gonna allow for ten more minutes. For any last minute questions, feel free to put those in the chat. Alright. So that would give us a few more minutes. We do have two questions here, Maria. The first being, when would the May cohort cohort complete? So, essentially, what's the duration of the program? Yeah. Exactly. It's, if you do that the pace that we recommend, it's two years. We We offer three semesters each year. So it would it it's, you know, two calendar years. So it means that you'd be completing in, well, July 2023. Right? Although your graduation, you'd be you'd be part of the graduating class of 2023 because that's how we we work it here at Divine Mercy University. So it's it's two years if you do the recommended rhythm that we have, which is to follow your cohort.

45:43It's a rhythm that, we created that's very, you know, very conducive to someone that has a full time job or a full time other occupation, you know, grandparent, parent. Mhmm. So we only offer three semesters a year. They're each course is is eight weeks long, and that gives you breathing space. And we also create, chose these semesters so that they're not coinciding, like, with major holidays or even summer holidays so that you could actually, you know, have your family life, along as you're taking this program. Considering that most of the people that do apply for this program, you know, we're looking for people that have a certain amount of life experience. So, you know, they're they're usually in, you know, 40, late thirties, at the at the youngest, and they, you know, they are they are doing other things.

46:42You know, this is a ministry. It's not a career, so it's not like it, giving spiritual direction. You will make tons of money. And so we know it's something that you that many people want to do, but it's a way to give back to the to their their church or their faith community. But it doesn't unnecessarily offer an income. So, sometimes people need to be also with a full time job and things like that as they're, as they're learning this this ministry and then as they're practicing this ministry. So the program tries to have a rhythm that can allow for both learning and life. Okay. The two l's. Mhmm. Alright. Our next question is, with COVID COVID and diasen assignment changes, my spiritual director of many years was moved.

47:38So I've had a gap in my own direction recently, and I'm currently seeking and discerning a new director. Will this gap be a problem? No. The gap is not a problem because you've had spiritual direction. It sounds like you've had a spiritual direction relationship, but at least from what I'm picking up, it seems considerable. Right? And we we would just say to you, in the interviewing process that, you know, when you are in the program, we would want you to have a spiritual director. So as long as you're able to find that person when you're in the program, it should be fine. Alrighty. And, we'll also be sending out the recording to this webinar via email in addition to, the this the links here that you see, so that if you wanna go ahead and start your application, you can do so, and you can just click right on through.

48:40I don't see any other questions coming in. So if you do have those, feel free to reach out to us at your convenience, and we'd be happy to assist you. Thank you again, Maria, for today's presentation. Thank you, Ebony, for your help. It's always a joy to work with you, and and I thank everyone for coming. It's always, a great opportunity to speak about spiritual direction and and the the gift that this ministry is to, to each of us. I know it's helped me so much in my own life too personally and the gift that it is to our faith communities. God bless you all, and have a good day.